


a way from here to the sea

by werewolfsquad



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Drowning, Gen, Hurt Arthur Morgan, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Young Arthur Morgan, Young John Marston
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 09:16:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20776163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werewolfsquad/pseuds/werewolfsquad
Summary: When a thirteen-year-old John manages to get himself tossed in a river, it is, as always, Arthur’s job to prevent him from getting himself killed.





	a way from here to the sea

**Author's Note:**

> Read a headcanon a while ago now that someone had that John’s fear of the water came after watching Arthur nearly drown. I can’t for the life of me remember when or where I read it, but it’s been stuck in my head since. On top of that, this oneshot is filled with tropes that have been done in many rdr fics before. So, I mean all that to say that I can’t exactly call myself original here, but I hope you all enjoy reading!

In retrospect, maybe they’d gotten a little too complacent. It was easy enough when a job went well, left them with saddlebags loaded up with enough cash to keep them set for a month at least. It was cause for a little good mood, sure, at least in Arthur’s eyes, but it shouldn’t have lost them their focus, at least not until they got back to camp. If anything, it should’ve made them more careful.

But it hadn’t. And now a man with a gun was dangling John off a bridge. Wasn’t that something.

It was John’s mouth that had gotten him in trouble. The kid had been riding high off his first bit of participation in a real job, and, though he hadn’t been any more than a lookout, it was enough to make him cocky. So when a handful of armed men stopped them on a bridge, demanded they hand over their horses and all their cash, John had been mouthy. Apparently mouthy enough for one of their would-be robbers to snatch John from the back of Arthur’s horse, the kid still light enough to be held off his feet, dangled into the open air.

The same would-be robber was saying something, but Arthur was hearing none of it. He couldn’t put a name to the feeling bubbling up in his chest, but it wasn’t anything pleasant. Sure, John was a little shit, annoying as all hell, but that didn’t mean some two-bit robber playing at outlaw could yank him away when it was usually Arthur’s job to keep an eye on the kid.

Dutch was going to kill him.

“Off your horses, now,” the man holding John said.

“You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree there, pal,” Arthur couldn’t help saying.

And then there was a gun pointed in his direction, and the man repeated, “_Off _ the goddamn horse.”

Arthur dismounted, but only because he could see Dutch and Hosea doing the same out of the corner of his eye. Held up his hands where the man with the gun could see them clearly.

Dutch had a plan, Arthur was sure. Dutch always had a plan, and if he didn’t, Hosea did. And Arthur trusted them to get them out of this, away from some men trying a holdup way out of their league. 

The problem, it turned out, was that John, thirteen and still convinced half the time that the folks around camp were going to stab him in the back, did _ not _ hold the same trust in Dutch and Hosea that Arthur did. The man holding John took a step to the side, trying to keep an angle on Arthur with the gun. A small movement, sure, but enough to jostle John, still angry and squirming and entirely unhappy with being used to pacify the rest of them. Enough to put John at an angle to the man’s arm. Enough to get John’s face close to the man’s wrist.

And then the stupid goddamn kid bit down hard on the hand holding him up, and the robber dropped him.

Arthur was moving before John even hit the water. No time to go after the outlaw who’d dropped him, no matter how much Arthur would’ve loved to see his nose smashed to pieces. Barely even registered the shouts beside, then behind him, even as they turned to gunshots, before he was plunging into the water behind John.

The river was fast. Not quite the narrow rapids further upstream, but swollen with snowmelt and rough for it. Arthur cursed his birth father for a lot of things, but there were some small benefits to his sink-or-swim mentality. Arthur had certainly learned to damn swim. 

The same couldn’t be said for John Marston. It took a moment for Arthur to get his head above water, to get his bearings, but even that was too long. John was a vague shape struggling in the water, whatever natural instincts the boy might’ve had not near enough to keep him afloat. Longer still was Arthur getting close enough to grab at the kid, to try to draw him close.

Missed the first time. Swallowed some water in the process. Caught John on the second lunge, hand caught hard at his collar, nearly the exact same place that the goddamn robber had held him by. And when John met that bit of altruism with more panicked struggling, nearly dislodging Arthur’s hand, Arthur yanked him closer, wrapped one arm around his ribs, flush against his side. As much as Susan complained about John never gaining any weight, it worked to Arthur’s advantage when grappling a skinny thirteen year old. 

“Easy, Marston,” Arthur tried to hiss, regretting it near immediately when all it got him was water up his nose. John was still squirming in his grasp, gasping and choking and sounding half-drowned already. More than half, even, and as much as Arthur could swim being reduced to just his legs, and feet booted on top of it. 

“Christ, Marston,” he said, or tried to say, only he had no idea how clear it actually was through the water. “Tryin’ t’help you here.” And then, louder “_Quit strugglin’_.”

Finally, the message seemed to get through, John still coughing and wheezing over the water in his lungs, but his hands scrabbled up against Arthur’s arm, held tight to his sleeve. “Arthur?”

But Arthur didn’t reply, was too focused on craning his head around. They were being swept fast, past rocks and branches and all sorts of things that it was a miracle they didn’t hit yet and Arthur couldn’t even see the goddamn bridge anymore, let alone where Dutch and Hosea were, and he had to kick hard to keep them both afloat. And it was barely working at that, the water washing over his face and getting into his lungs and John coughing with his fingers pressing hard into Arthur and Arthur didn’t even have the ability to haul John higher out of the water to keep it from splashing in the kid’s face for fear of losing hold of him and—

There.

A log, jutting out into the water. They were in a rockier patch now, and that was both dangerous and a boon. The log was wedged between a handful of rocks, swept there by some flooding earlier in the spring, by any guess. Stripped of bark, probably rotting, but _ something_.

Arthur kicked, once, twice, and then reached out. Thought he missed it at first, until his fingers closed on something rough and suddenly his shoulder was _ wrenched _ as the force of the river tried to continue them on their previous course. Still, he didn’t lose his grip. Couldn’t lose his grip, not on the wood, and not on John.

Something scraped across Arthur’s belly as he scrambled to get a better hold on the log, but he barely felt the bright burst of pain. Didn’t matter, not when they weren’t out of the water yet. Eventually anchored himself with an arm wrapped around a branch, the other still held tight around John.

“C’mon, kid,” Arthur said, trying to heave John up on the log and the rocks it was wedged between. “Need you to help me out here.”

“Tryin’—” John snapped back, and even though it was hoarse and breathy, like he was still half drowned, it was somewhat of a comfort. Still enough spark in the kid to fight when Arthur told him to do something. 

And maybe he was trying, but with the slick wood and John no longer coughing but still shaking—whether from fear or cold or exhaustion or some combination of all of them, Arthur wasn’t sure—they were getting nowhere. Arthur trying his hardest to shove, to get an arm, a shoulder, anything under John, enough to get him up on the rocks, get him _ safe_, and yet he didn’t have the leverage with his feet kicking loose in the river, didn’t have the _ strength_, and Dutch was going to _ kill him_—

And then John’s weight was lifted from him, and Arthur had one moment of sharp panic run through his chest before he pulled his eyes up, blinked once. “H’sea?”

Hosea was kneeling on the rocks, the same ones Arthur had been trying so hard to get John up onto. In the back of his mind, Arthur knew that he and John must’ve survived long enough for Hosea and Dutch to take care of the situation on the bridge, to ride the horses down to try to find them. But he was so caught up in the river and the more-desperate-than-he’d-like-to-admit urge to keep John alive that it took him a moment to understand in his head. 

Again, he asked, even as Hosea turned, pushed John out of Arthur’s sight, “Hosea?”

“Arthur,” Hosea said, and reached out a hand for Arthur to grab.

Arthur tried. But something—the shift in the weight, the decay of the wood, just some cosmic entity deciding it really wanted Arthur to have a bad goddamn day—something changed. The wood Arthur had anchored himself to shifted with a lurch. And he didn’t even have a chance to grab for something else, let alone reach for Hosea’s hand, before the branch he’d been holding broke, crumbled with the weight of his body, and he was pulled near immediately out of Hosea’s reach. 

Dutch _ definitely _ was going to goddamn kill him, Arthur thought, if Hosea didn’t get to him first. And then the water swept him hard into a rock, a burst of pain through his skull the last thing he knew.

* * *

If Dutch didn’t know any better, he’d think Arthur actually liked John. Or, at least, there were few other explanations for nearly drowning himself in the interest of saving a kid Arthur normally didn’t give the time of day. If Dutch wasn’t trying so hard to keep himself from panicking, he might even think it funny. 

As it was, he was driving his horse hard down the path, trying his hardest to get to Arthur before the water took him completely.

Hosea had John, and that was something. But they had both seen Arthur tumble back into the river when the log dislodged, and, while Dutch knew Arthur could swim well enough, he’d gone under near immediately after slamming headfirst into a rock. And now all Dutch knew of the boy was the occasional glimpse of hair, clothing, all bits attached to a body tumbling free in the river. 

No splashing at all, no fight from a boy Dutch knew could fight like no one else, and that above all else was what was making Dutch’s heart pound hard in his chest. 

He didn’t know this stretch of water, but the rapids in any river couldn’t last forever. So he drove his spurs hard to Viscount’s black flank, pushed the horse harder, uncaring of the rough, rocky surface that he churned up under his hooves. Needed to get to Arthur. 

His opportunity came when the river leveled, a pitch of rapids widening, stretching into slow moving water. How deep, Dutch wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t like he had any other choice than to drive Viscount down the bank and into the water, trying to intercept the vague shape swept along by the river.

He nearly missed Arthur. Nearly didn’t get enough of a lead on him, delayed more than he thought by Viscount’s hooves churning in the water. The horse was willing to do near anything Dutch asked, sure, but even the best horses could fight only so hard against a river. As it was, they were still a good few paces away when the water brought Arthur to him, and that wasn’t good enough.

Dutch drove his heels into Viscount’s side and the horse lunged forward. Deep enough now that the horse was up to his flank in water, but it was enough. Dutch bent as far as he could out of his saddle, and when he closed his fingers, the loose fabric of one of Arthur’s sleeves was caught between them.

Arthur came out of the water limp and lifeless, water streaming from his mouth. And that wasn’t good, Dutch knew, the fluttering of his own heart only increasing as he hauled the boy onto the front of his saddle just behind the horn, jerked Viscount’s reins to send them back to shore. 

Dutch’s boots were soaked through, and that was something that he’d get after Arthur for later, all that and scaring the hell out of them. Sure, it was good John was safe, seeing as it kept him from considering losing both of his proteges in one fell swoop, but Dutch would vastly prefer that neither of them ended the day drowned. 

He was barely to shore before there were hands on Arthur’s limp form, and Hosea was pulling Arthur to the ground. Dutch spared only a quick glance towards Hosea’s horse as he dismounted his own, where John was sitting in the saddle, watching with wide eyes. That too was a thing to deal with once Arthur was on his feet again. 

“He’s not breathing,” Dutch said, though Hosea seemed to know that already. In fact, Hosea seemed to have taken stock of the situation entirely, laying Arthur flat on the bank even as Dutch dropped to his knees beside them.

Dutch had always felt something near useless in situations like these, and it never sat right in his stomach. As clever as Hosea was, Dutch was the leader, after all. The papers were starting to call them the Van der Linde gang, and that was for a reason. And, yet, seeing Arthur lying there, face slack, soaked, blood running from the gash where his head hit the rock, was paralyzing. 

_ Not breathing_.

Arthur was someone important to him, a boy he’d raised, put work into. He loved Arthur just as well as he imagined a father might a son. And now he wasn’t breathing. 

Hosea, of course, didn’t let him sit on his heels and do nothing, as much as the other man knew how Dutch got around injury. “Pressure here,” he said, gesturing to Arthur’s stomach, even as he hauled Arthur’s hips up onto Dutch’s legs. “Water needs to come out.”

And Dutch listened, pressed his hands to the soaked material of Arthur’s shirt. Wasn’t like there was much else he could do. Bore down hard on Arthur’s stomach before he even realized the color of the shirt under his fingers, the blue cotton stained with a washed-out red.

“Why’s there blood?” And then, when the man in question didn’t answer him, “Hosea?”

“Not now,” Hosea muttered back, and tilted Arthur’s head back. Pinched his nose, inhaled before leaning over. 

One breath into Arthur’s body. Two, three—

“Arthur…?”

Dutch hadn’t noticed whenever John had dismounted off of Hosea’s horse, nor when he had gotten so close. But here he was, eyes panicked, still-wet hair plastered to the sides of his head. Half drowned, and Dutch was going to snap at him, going to tell the boy to get back, some vague anger about the possibility of John seeing Arthur dead from some preventable accident and desire to keep him out of the way, when a choking noise came from Arthur’s throat. 

In one seizing motion he jerked up and over, flipping to his stomach and Dutch just barely had enough time to stumble backwards to prevent his boots being covered with the water Arthur half coughed, half vomited up. Hosea was there near instantly, murmuring something under his breath with one hand on Arthur’s shoulder, something between comfort and just plain holding Arthur up as the boy coughed and coughed and coughed and more water splattered on the ground. 

Finally, when Dutch was almost worried that they were still going to lose Arthur if he couldn’t get air in his chest, Arthur was able to inhale one heaving breath of air. Dropped his forehead to the ground, chest moving in jerky swells as he panted, gasps of air rippled with coughing. 

“That’s it, Arthur,” Hosea murmured, low enough that Dutch could barely hear it. “Gonna lay you down, alright?”

Though Hosea had phrased it like a question, it wasn’t one. He gestured Dutch in close before pushing Arthur gently down.

“On his side,” he instructed, and Dutch obliged, rocking Arthur back so he was lying curled, head pillowed on one of Dutch’s legs. 

Still a wheezing edge to his breathing, and chest rising and falling rapidly, almost desperately, and no wonder, what with how much water he’d coughed up. Still drying on the ground, soaking into the dirt shore, and Arthur’s hair drying similar, dripping water into the fabric of Dutch’s pants. As much as Arthur had grown in the time Dutch had known him, gotten taller and filled out, lying on the ground soaked and coughing after nearly drowning made him only emphasized how young the boy still was. 

Hosea, of course, stayed focused. “Arthur, you with us?” And Arthur didn’t say anything back, but Hosea had a palm on the boy’s face, was studying it close, and something in it must’ve reassured him, because he said, “Good. Cough it out.”

In Dutch’s own opinion, there wasn’t much else Arthur _ could _ do. 

“You’re alright, son,” Dutch added, though it was just as much for his own sake than for Arthur’s. A small noise that might’ve been a hum if it wasn’t interrupted by coughing was his only reply, but that was something, at least.

Hosea was now working open the buttons on Arthur’s shirt, baring his stomach to the open air. The blood Dutch had spotted turned out to be a large scrape across the skin there—not deep, but long—and Hosea quickly went to work on putting pressure on both that and the still sluggishly bleeding gash on Arthur’s head. 

Dutch himself found his hand running through Arthur’s hair, wet and tangled, as Arthur’s breathing finally evened out, as the coughs finally faded. Found himself almost surprised when Arthur tilted his head slightly, slurred, “S’kid okay?” against Dutch’s leg.

Dutch glanced up towards John. The boy had been spooked off when Arthur started breathing, now standing off towards the horses, watching them all with wide eyes. “John’s fine, son,” Dutch said, because of course he was fine.

“Scared out of his wits, though,” Hosea said, voice quiet. “Really gave him a fright when you weren’t breathing.”

“Gave all of us a fright,” Dutch added, because he sure knew that he didn’t want that to be forgotten.

Arthur’s brows creased, and he turned his head a little more into Dutch’s leg. “Sorry.”

Above Arthur, still caring methodically for Arthur’s wounds, Hosea shook his head. “Ain’t your fault. Just glad you continue to breathe the same air as the rest of us.” There was a lightness to his tone of voice, one that Dutch knew well enough to be something intentional. 

There was a moment of silence, the sound of the river running slow beside them, and then Arthur’s voice, still shaky and hoarse, drifted into the air again. “Dead?”

“Hmm?”

“They dead?”

Dutch knew immediately who Arthur meant, and the implication that the would-be robbers would still be alive almost made him laugh. “Course they are.” Dutch would know, after all. He’d been the one to put bullets through the heads of every single man who thought it a prosperous idea to put a gun to Dutch van der Linde, right before he rode down the river to aid Hosea in rescuing their boys. “You think we’d let them live? Throwin’ John off a goddamn bridge?”

That got a rough sort of chuckle out of Arthur, something too weak and wheezing to be entirely reassuring. Dutch ran his fingers through the boy’s hair again, shook his head. 

“No, son. Every person who threatens you boys ain’t worth nothin’ more than the cost of a bullet.” And then, meeting Hosea’s eyes as the other man straightened, nodding his readiness to move, Dutch shifted, tugged on one of Arthur’s sleeves, said, “C’mon, son. Let’s get you home.”

* * *

Arthur drifted in and out for a good few hours. They’d stuck him on the back of Dutch’s horse on the ride back to camp, not entirely trusting that he’d be able to keep himself mounted on his own. For once, Arthur was resigned to agree, seeing just how quick he dropped into sleep after Dutch and Hosea had helped him back to his bedroll and them plus Grimshaw all made it very clear that he was not to move from that spot for the next day at least.

He hurt near all over. Lungs still burned like he couldn’t get enough air, like there was water in the depths of them. Shoulder achy where the water had wrenched it, stomach stinging whenever he moved, head pounding. All in all, as much as he usually loathed sitting around, he wasn’t particularly inclined to get up. Not until he could do so without coughing his lungs out, at the very least.

He wasn’t sure what time it was now. Miss Grimshaw had come in with soup that she’d convinced him to sit up to eat, so evening, at the very least, maybe later based on the light that filtered through the tent. What he did know without looking was who was standing at the entrance of the tent, no matter how quiet he tried to be. He made sure his voice carried when he called, “Know you’re there, John.”

A moment of silence, and then a scuffle of movement from somewhere out of sight. Arthur didn’t have the energy to move his head, but he didn’t need to; instead John Marston’s face swam into view above him.

Swam. Poor choice of words.

Affixed to John’s face was not the usual scowl that adorned his expression, but instead a look Arthur would almost call worry, if he even thought John capable of the emotion. Of course, that wasn’t to last, not when John stared down at Arthur and the first words out of his mouth were, “You ain’t dead.”

Arthur heaved a breath, ignoring how it made him want to cough. “Nah, generally they don’t go through the trouble of feedin’ dead folks. You think Grimshaw’s bringin’ food in here for nothin’?”

Technically, the tent was John’s too. Had been ever since they picked John up, when Dutch had decided that it might make the two of them more friendly if they were forced to share. Arthur had considered making some flippant comment about how it was also cheaper and took up less space to make the two of them sleep in the same tent, but it hadn’t been worth the fight. 

Still, even with John by all indications having an equal claim to the space as Arthur, Arthur hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the kid since they got back to camp. Normally John was apt to hang around, get under the feet of everything and everyone, and Arthur maybe especially. But Arthur hadn’t seen him, hadn’t even heard him.

Now, though, John was looking him over critically. “You _ looked _ dead.”

“What, and you’re the expert on dead folks now?”

John just rolled his shoulders. “Seen plenty of ‘em.”

And that made Arthur change course. Because it wasn’t John trying to brag, saying it. As different as he and the kid were, they were similar enough in that regard. “Sit down, Marston, you’re hurtin’ my neck.” Nodded to indicate where he meant, and immediately regretted it as his head gave a throb. 

John, to his credit, did as asked, collapsing into a cross-legged position next to Arthur’s shoulder. It didn’t really do anything to ease how uncomfortable Arthur was looking up at John from this angle, but it at least got the kid a bit more settled.

But John wasn’t looking at Arthur, was instead looking over at the open mouth of the tent, which Arthur thought to be something of an inconsistency, seeing as John had come in with the apparent intent of staring at Arthur, and now, given the opportunity, was pointedly not using it.

After a long moment of silence, Arthur asked, “Dutch chew you out?”

“Said it could wait,” John said, shrugging his shoulders again.

“Course he did.” Because that was Dutch in a nutshell, quick to come down on anything Arthur did that might put John at risk, but when John got himself tossed off a goddamn bridge, it could wait. 

But Arthur’s words seemed to rankle at John some, because the kid bit his lip, jerked his head over towards Arthur, eyebrows lowered.. “Weren’t—weren’t tryin’ to—you, y’ain’t had to jump in after me, alright?”

Arthur lowered his own eyebrows right back. “Y’can’t swim, Marston.”

“Ain’t—ain’t mean you gotta—”

“And let you_ drown_?” Arthur couldn’t help the bewilderment in his voice.

But John just gave him a hard glare, spat, “Why do you care?”

When Arthur was young and new to the gang, Dutch and Hosea would sometimes sit with him at night after he had a bad dream. It took him a while to accept that sort of affection, not used to guardian figures that actually cared for him, that wanted him to be happy. He’d been fighting so long for survival that having some aid in that endeavor was something foreign. 

This wasn’t quite that, but it was an olive branch. As badly as John was doing it, the boy was trying to apologize. He felt _ guilty _. And that was a step forward, if nothing else. Arthur lifted an arm, and, when John looked at him with vague confusion, Arthur gestured him in, said, “C’mon, kid. Ain’t gonna offer twice.”

It took a second, but John got the idea, slipped down onto the bedroll next to Arthur and let Arthur pull him to his side. After a second, he slipped his arms around Arthur, tucked his cheek up against Arthur’s side. 

When had he ever seen John anything close to soft before now? The boy was more apt to spit venom than anything else, but show him just a little risk of loss— 

Arthur inhaled, tried to think hard on all those various things Dutch and Hosea and Bessie had said, back when it was Arthur that they were trying to reassure of his place in the gang. Finally, “Listen, irritatin’ as you may be, boy, ain’t gonna let you drown just ‘cause you made some mistake. Ain’t the kinda folks we are.” Not the kind of person Dutch and Hosea had made Arthur into. 

A long pause, and then, tentatively, “You promise?”

Christ, like a little kid. John acting his age for once in his life. Arthur rocked his head back, ignoring the twinge of pain it made. “Promise.” And then, not a fan of the atmosphere in the tent, “But, listen, oughta be careful there, Johnny. Ain’t gonna be there to save you every time your mouth gets you in trouble.”

John sighed. “I ain’t never goin’ in the water again.”

“Need t’learn how to swim sometime or another.”

“Nah, never.”

Somehow, with the conviction in his voice, Arthur half believed the kid.

**Author's Note:**

> So in the late 1800s CPR was its very early forms, and much of that procedure was developed from treatment of drowning victims. But, rather than chest compressions as we know them now, instead abdominal pressure was more common for drowning victims, and there was a much higher focus on rescue breathing than we now have today. I did have a hard time narrowing down the exact dates of when specific techniques were developed, so I apologize for any inaccuracies.
> 
> Anyway, writing this was mostly self-indulgent when there are so many other wonderful fics that have dealt with similar situations/tropes, but I hope you all got some enjoyment out of it!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [werewolfsquadron](http://werewolfsquadron.tumblr.com).


End file.
